The Matrix of Professor Jeff Halper
ICAHD's langue de bois
Guilt is Innocence;
Innocence is Guilt
The totalitarian movements of the Twentieth
Century, both Nazi and Communist, created specialized political jargons of a
particularly pernicious kind. It was a langue de bois, a language of wood, designed to hide and deceive. A
glaring example was the Communist phrase "peoples democratic
republics" to represent their absolute dictatorships. Words and phrases
were used to hide an ugly reality to make it appear as its very opposite.
(European writers, particularly French and
Polish, have analyzed the langue de bois in detail. Much of this work is accessible through a Google search,
but it appears to be completely in French. In the English-speaking world it was
George Orwell who pioneered, though he did not use the term langue de bois.)
And now, who would have thought it, some
Jewish enemies of Israel, in the very country of Israel, have revived the
practice of langue de bois: the
"Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions," its very name
deceitful.
ICAHD is run by an American-born anti-Israel
agitator. It concerns itself only incidentally with house demolition, its
primary concern being the demolition of Israel. The group has already been well
described in reports by a number of Jewish defense organizations, most notably
NGO Monitor
and
These reports are highly critical of ICAHD,
but I found that the most (unwittingly) damaging materials are found on its own verbose and voluminous web site.
Studying these materials and greatly profiting
from them, I found it nevertheless necessary to add some observations of my own
on ICAHD's peculiar linguistic usage, its langue de bois.
ISRAELI
The very first word in ICAHD's name is
misleading. Its
own materials make it very clear that the group is organized to influence
the non-Israeli world of public relations. It conducts tours and briefings for
the international press, and it organizes illegal construction projects by
recruiting young "internationals" (see below) from abroad. It works
with other anti-Israel activists world-wide. As the NGO Monitor (see above) has
pointed out, it is financed from abroad. Halper refuses to serve in the Israeli
armed forces, and his web site incites others to similarly refuse their
military obligation.
PEACE
ICAHD sells itself as working for peace. But
its program endorses the maximum demands of the most uncompromising among the
Arabs.
Halper wants Israeli Jews to live in an
Arab-dominated "bi-national" entity. The best that can be said of
this suggestion is that it is mindless. Which Arab-dominated society does he
have in mind as a model ? Lebanon ? Iraq ?
Halper characterizes any Arab leader who
would sign a peace accord based on the Camp David understandings as a
"quisling" (The Key to
Peace: Dismantling the Matrix of Control). [I have more to say about his
use of "quisling" below.] Halper has acknowledged that there is no
segment of Israeli society that would accept the program that he touts. So it
must be clear to any reader of his pronouncements that he is calling for armed
struggle, for a perpetual war against Israel, as are the Islamicists whose
views he supports. As did Orwell's Ministry of Peace, Halper proclaims that War
is Peace.
MATRIX OF CONTROL
"Matrix of Control" encapsulate
Halper's philosophy. The phrase occurs over and over in ICAHD's materials,
usually capitalized. As we shall see, it is a philosophy that calls upon the
Palestinians to reject all the peace proposals that have been on the table
during the last twenty years.
But why "Matrix" ? It is a nebulous
word, and dictionary definitions ("something within or from which
something else originates, develops, or takes form," etc.) give no clue.
It is only the propagandistic context of the phrase in Halper's writings that
signal its aggressive intent.
I have relied on his article "The Key to
Peace: Dismantling the Matrix of Control" (undated, currently on
ICAHD's site) to reconstruct the following as his thesis:
Everything Israel says and does fits into a
dark conspiracy ("Matrix") to oppress, dispossess, kill, maim, and permanently
injure the whole of the Palestinian population. All Israeli governments and
parties partake of this grand plot. The only way to peace is to
"dismantle" this "Matrix," in effect to dismantle the
Jewish state, and to replace it with a majority-Arab "bi-national"
entity.
The technical term for this faulty reasoning
is reification: you take an abstraction, in this case a theory
in Halper's mind, and it becomes a thing, a reality.
The people who speak of "intelligent
design" have a similar approach: they see phenomena here and there, they
connect them in their own minds, and they then detect a "design" on
the part of a designer. They do not admit any phenomena that do not fit their
"design" -- no cancer, no war, no catastrophe, no injustice. As some
critics of this point of view have pointed out, no engineer would have actually
designed a "creation" with so many flagrant flaws.
The elements that make up Halper's
"Matrix" indeed include more than a few disturbing disadvantages and
disabilities for the Palestinian people. Most Israelis would want to alleviate
and eliminate them. But just as the "intelligent design" of the
theologians refuses to admit anything that does not fit, Halper refuses to
admit as positive to Palestinians any factors whatever -- he sees no peaceful
intentions within the Israeli population, and he regards any concessions on the
part of Israel as sham. Nor does he sees any responsibility for the sorry state
of Palestinian society anywhere outside of Israeli action -- not in the Palestinian
elite, not in Arab governments, not in Arab society.
When Halper sees malicious intention in all
Israeli policy, no matter how pragmatic, no matter how ad hoc, the technical
term for this projection of evil intent is paranoia.
Finally, Halper's "Matrix" of evil
is entirely static. It is the work of all Israeli governments and parties, once
and for all, and there are no dynamic forces that could alter this Matrix short
of its "dismantlement."
INTERNATIONALS
When ICAHD speaks of
"internationals," it does this with the implicit claim that there is
a group of people, neither Israeli nor Palestinian, who, because of their
independence and good will, have a privileged position to determine the rights
and the wrongs of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In practice, of course,
these "internationals" who work with ICAHD have accepted the ICAHD
position -- i.e. the most uncompromising of possible Arab points of view.
For anyone to mediate a conflict, he must be
genuinely neutral and be well disposed to both sides. The followers of Halper
are not well disposed toward "Zionist" Israelis. They ceaselessly
denounce the evils of "occupation," the "Matrix of
Control." Nor are they well-disposed toward moderate Arabs, whom they
denounce the "quislings."
Now with regard to Halper's use of this term,
"quisling,"
I must really say that it is evidence that he has completely taken leave of his
senses. To those of us who lived in the Nazi era, Halper's words here can only
be totally preposterous. He is telling us that Israel is equivalent to the Nazi
government and that making peace with it is the equivalent of partaking in
Nazi-like evil. I have tried, but I really cannot see how any decent person can
have dealings with a man like Halper.
Finally, concerning these
"internationals" who work with Halper, just who has appointed them to
be the judges of Jews and Arabs ? These people parachute into Israel, they help
Halper incite Palestinian Arabs against Israel, and then, the summer over, they
return to their comfortable lives back home. They do not have to live with the
consequences of the mischief that they have wreaked.
INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY
It seems that to Halper, "international
civil society" is the final arbiter of right and wrong. He has been
nominated by the American Friends Service Committee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
This, to Halper, proves that International Civil Society is on his side. He
does not seem to have noticed that the AFSC, in its current incarnation, has
become an extremist small sect, given to agitate against Israel and other
perceived evils. This was not always so. The AFSC was established as an
international relief organization by the Religious Society of Friends. But some
time during the latter half of the 20th century it was taken over by its paid
professional staff and turned itself into an ultra-left advocacy group. It is
no longer supported by many of its Quaker founders.
"International civil society," in
Halper's usage, does not at all mean what it purports to mean, viz. the
expression of peace-loving humanity. It means those people from around the
world who cheer Halper when he organizes the war against his own people.
PROFESSOR
ICAHD materials invariably refer to Halper as
"professor," or, as in the Matrix article I cited, as an
"anthropologist." But as far as I can tell, Halper has been neither
"professor" nor "anthropologist" for at least a decade.
It is true that there are many academics who
are also political advocates. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that. But
it is generally understood that there is a line between scholarship and
advocacy. There are actually very few academics that I have encountered who
represent themselves as academic experts while engaged in political activity.
Chomsky, for example, has often disclaimed scholarly expertise for his
politics.
There are of course cases that fall into a
gray area. Scholarship may in some sense be advocacy, and advocacy may have
scholarly elements. As it happens, Halper's articles can by no possible stretch
be called either anthropology or any other kind of scholarship. A great many of
Halper's articles are available on the Web. They show evidence of great energy
and industry, in the field of political advocacy. Whatever academic work he may
have done, for the last decade, has not shown up in my searches.
In brief, Halper is using academic
credentials, illegitimately, in an effort to provide a cloak of objectivity for
his extremist politics.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We speak sometimes of good intentions and bad
intentions, and we tend to give credit to people whom we perceive as well
intentioned even when we disagree with them. There is enough in Halper's
rhetoric to have the appeal of worthy sentiment -- peace, help to the downtrodden,
and so forth -- to some of his followers. But they should realize that we
cannot judge a person's heart. We can judge the clarity, or lack thereof, of
his preachings. And when a man speaks with a forked tongue we should beware of
associating with him if for no other reason than that.
Werner Cohn
August 2006
Supplement, February 2007
Guilt is Innocence; Innocence is Guilt
A Canadian group that is connected to ICAHD,
viz. the Jews for a
Just Peace of Vancouver, Canada, has published a remarkable Open Letter to
Jews in Palestine by the Arab journalist Khalid Amayreh. Mr. Amayreh finds
that no matter how innocent Israeli victims of (random) Arab terror may appear,
they are in fact guilty, " first and foremost, for electing a war
criminal to be your Prime Minister, whose hands are drenched in the blood of
the innocent. Could it be that you elected him on that account?" For these Jews for a Just Peace, any random bystander to an Arab terror attack, of
any age or nationality, is deemed to have been an Israeli voter and therefore
deserving death. In short, in the langue
de bois of this movement, the Arab
terrorist is innocent, the Jewish (or, indeed, non-Jewish) victim is guilty.
Guilt is Innocence, Innocence is Guilt. Could Orwell have invented anything
more Orwellian ?
Supplement, June 2007
Professor Halper,
star of the boycott-Israel movement
It appears that Professor Halper has become
the "star" of the movement
to boycott Israeli academics. In the meanwhile, of course, he claims that
he himself is an Israeli academic. Does he want us to boycott him as well ? Neither logic nor good sense seem to be among Prof. H's
strong points.
For further reading:
Noam Chomsky's "Documentary" Basis for Anti-Zionism
Chomsky's Links to the neo-Nazis: Some documents
Israel Shahak's writings on the Jews
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